


Pinprick

by Empy (Empyreus)



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Additional Warnings In Author's Note, American Gods BOOKVERSE, Light Masochism, M/M, Needles, Old Gods, POV First Person, Painplay, kink bingo, needleplay, non-Marvel Thor, norse gods, tiny bit of bloodplay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-30
Updated: 2017-04-30
Packaged: 2018-10-25 18:16:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,456
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10769727
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Empyreus/pseuds/Empy
Summary: How'd you get all those scars, Low Key?





	Pinprick

**Author's Note:**

> The needleplay in this fic is NOT safe and should absolutely not be used as a guide. There are several excellent tutorials on safe needleplay online, please consult those instead.
> 
> This fic was started about eight years ago, for a round of kink bingo I never completed (three guesses as to which square this was for!). And now, inspired by the fact that the tv series is coming out, I finished it. Please note that this is firmly BOOKVERSE. As of this posting, the first episode of the series hasn't aired yet, but I thought I'd add that note about bookverse all the same. *g*

"How'd you get all those scars, Low Key?"

So I tell them. "Buncha dicks sewed my mouth shut."

"That's fucked up, man. Fucked. Up."

Sure it is. Fucked up and down and in and out... but I digress.

 

Brokk and Eitiri must have thought they were so clever, literally shutting me up like that after I pulled a fast one on them. I hated them then, but now I think I should thank them for the introduction to a new favourite trick. 

I could have undone the stitches after a while (dwarven craft is good, but not that good), but decided against it. Kept them in for a while, because whenever I forgot and tried to speak or eat or drink, there was a savage pull that for all its horribleness was quite nice. Kind of like the afterglow of a good slap. 

Unless you've tried it, you can't know what an experience it is. Mad Sweeney can't understand it, but that's to be expected from someone who routinely gets his skull fucked by hooch. Wednesday doesn't understand it, and that old fucker gave up an eye and let himself hang on the World Tree for days.

Maybe you've stabbed yourself in the finger with a needle once. Maybe you've got something pierced. Maybe even your lips. Still, you can't know what it's like to have your mouth sewed shut, can't know the electric little skitter and the cat's teeth of pain. 

You know how they say that if a needle is sharp enough you can't feel it, right? It's an ass-backwards way of going about it. There's something to be said for duller needles, for the pain of the metal forcing its way through flesh.

The first time they did it the needles were sharp.

The other times they were dull.

How else did you think I got these juicy scars?

 

You can't suck dick with your mouth sewn shut, and that counts as a pro or a con depending on your tastes. Or on the tastes of the one doing the stitching. Strange how people are all too willing to gag you with leather or with cock, but then stall when they see the needles.

But they don't call me Silver-tongue for nothing.

Soon enough, their sweating fingers are clenched around my jaw while steel trembles in my flesh. And they're always turned on.

 

I can persuade anyone.

 

"Thor, I've a favour to ask," I say. "For that time when Sif had--"

"Yes," he interrupts, voice a clipped little hiss even though we're out of earshot of everyone in the main hall of Bilskirnir. "Fine."

I see he still hasn't learned to ask me what kind of favours I want. His loss. He forgets so many things when he gets flustered. And he gets flustered again now, brows knitting and mouth setting as he stops mid-stride. I can almost hear the cogs in his head turning when I tell him what I want. Well, the gist of it, at any rate.

"What?" he asks. "Needles?"

He really can be rather slow sometimes. "Yes. That's all I'm asking."

He can't decide between being surprised and being confused, and ends up being both at the same time. "Just that?" He hesitates for a moment. "Yes." This time, the word is soft, like a breath or a sigh. Something meant to be between the two of us only. A dirty little secret, and we have so many of them. But what happens in the shadows of Jotunheim, stays in Jotunheim, forgotten like a dropped bridal veil.

 

There are three dozen needles wrapped in linen. Some are bone and others steel, and there's a light vapour of moonshine about them, because they've been soaked in it. Works better than fire and there's no soot that way. I hand him the bundle before I sit down, and I can see his fist clench around it as he frowns.

"Why are you--"

"It's easier this way," I tell him, trying to keep the smirk out of my smile. "Sit on the bench."

The rushes on the floor of this room are trampled very flat, but at least there isn't a draft. Not that the winds of Thrudvangar would dare sneak in between the elaborately carved wall-boards of his vast hall. I can feel the warmth of the fire against my feet when I turn around to lean my back against his knees. The only sound from behind me is the creak of the bench as he shifts a little, and something that could have been a sigh or just the hiss of melting pine resin.

Then he leans down to grab my chin. It forces me to cant my head back at a painful angle, and when my back arches a little to take the strain off my neck, he parts his legs to be able to bracket my shoulders with his knees. The grip is strong and his hand is massive, but the palm is soft in strange contrast to the harsh and worn skin of the pads of his fingers. Farmer's hands. Fighter's hands.

Familiar hands. I'd know those hands anywhere. 

The very edge of the first needle rests against my lower lip. Just rests there, not pushing at all.

"Do it," I say. It's not a request.

"You're a strange sort, Loki," he replies, thoughtful. His left hand tightens its hold, pulls up so that my head cants further back between his legs. The fire disappears from view and instead I'm treated to the odd view of the rafters high above us and to a sliver of his face, upside-down at this angle. 

There's no flippant little preamble before he pushes the first needle clean through.

The pain is mead and blood and salt all at once. Then heat, boiling and throbbing just around the needle and turning it into a focal point, a beacon. The feel of a needle left in is so different from that of a needle pulling rough cord, so much cleaner and sharper. (Trust me. I've tried both.) The first needle is the sharpest of them all, every time, no matter how long it's been since the last time. It's like ice and fire at the same time, and I don't care how trite that sounds. That's what it feels like. Steel feels different from bone, but the pain is just as pleasant. Pain that doubles and triples now, as Thor adds needles. His touch is surprisingly deft, and his fingertips feel very warm against my skin. His brows are knitted, and there's a tense silence between us. We don't need to talk when we meet, and often we don't, because he doesn't always get my quips and I don't much care for his bluntness. 

And right now... well. 

 

He's moved on to the steel needles now, the slicker smoother longer needles. He pricks his finger with the longest of the needles, coaxes forth a single large drop of blood and paints it across my lips. It jostles the needles already in place, a sensation which goes straight through me like lightning. Ah. Yes. This. I'd gasp if I could. Instead, there is a groan rattling in my throat.

I can tell that his breathing is hitching even though he tries to hide it. He's so very easy to read. When he suddenly lets go of my chin and gets up from the bench, even his gait looks confused. He turns away from me for a moment, then crouches down next to me. I meet his gaze and hold it, revelling in the look on his face. He walked right into this one. Poor foolish Thor. Poor loyal Thor.

That is the good thing about him. That loyalty. Most times he's more than willing to grant a favour to a friend. Some favours he regrets afterwards, but that's his problem, not mine.

 

If I claim I'm doing this because only the needles get me off, I'm lying. If I claim I want him to get me off because he turns me on, then I'm lying. But just a little. I want him to do this because a) I can't do it on my own, because toward the end my hands always shake too much, b) the thrill of having someone else place the needles makes it so much better and c) because I trust him enough to have him do it and because I like the thought of being able to talk him into it. It's complicated. Everything always is.

 

I'm sweating all over, shirt sticking to my skin, and when I lift my hand to pull at my collar, it's hard to keep it steady. He reaches out to grab my wrist, though I'm not sure if he wants to help me or stop me, and then he halts mid-movement, his fingers tightening around my wrist.

I know he's looking at the scars that run under my collarbone. They're no bigger than snowflakes or rye grains at most, but they're many. They're scattered across my chest in a rather haphazard fashion, but how they're arranged isn't important at all. What is important is that I remember each needle, each little droplet of blood and each lash of bright pain.

"What have you been doing?" he asks, stretching his hand out to touch one particularly dense cluster.

I raise my hand to point at the needles keeping my mouth closed, and to his credit, he takes the hint immediately.

 

The world is tilting a little now, so I lie down, seeing his frown deepen. The look on his face is one of deep concentration, like all of this was a puzzle needing to be solved. And like I was handing him pieces that don't fit together at all. Poor loyal Thor. I know he won't leave, not now. Not in the middle of the fun.

He can't not have noticed. I might as well have a bone between my legs, or a spear, a mast, Skadi's fucking ski-pole. I'm breathing through my nose, panting and gasping like a horse spurred through a race. Blood runs down the sides of my face, into my hair and my ears, and I have a mouth full of it. And a body full of pain, skin like a sail laced with needles.

It's bliss.

He looks me over, gaze lingering where I thought it might, and I can see the twitch in his throat as he swallows. And then he straddles me, sitting on my thighs with his full weight. Not quite at the right angle, but I can forgive that. 

When he reaches his hand out toward my face, I wonder what he is going to do. The rest of the needles are on the bench still. His look is more intent than confused now, surprisingly hard to read.

The world suddenly fills with sparks. 

He's twisting the needles. Twisting them and plucking at them and my entire body sings with all the pain he's causing. It's boiling just under the surface, exploding at each needle-point. I can't tell what's up and what's down any longer, and I don't know if I'm inside the hall still or out on the cliffs by the shore. I could be in the fire for all I know, for all the burning that's tearing at my skin. I'd laugh if my mouth wasn't stitched shut. My heart is galloping in my chest, hundreds of bone-shaking beats, horribly out of time with the turns of the needles.

His free hand rests on my right hip, on the arch of bone, and I can't tell what he's thinking. He taps a nail on the needle in the very middle, making it thrum, and leans back when I give a little grunt.

"It's uncanny to have you so silent for once." There's the shadow of a laugh in his voice and a quirk in the corners of his mouth that I focus on so intently that I entirely miss what his hands are doing. When his hand wraps around my cock, my hips buck harder than I expected.

Oh, it'd be something to have him put a needle there, it really would. Just under the skin, something hair-thin to really test his fingers and my tolerance. 

He leans down, so close his hair brushes my forehead. Even the way his breath gently coasts over the needles hurts, like coals or boiling wine. "Maybe I should add a needle here," he says, tightening his grip on my cock. It's enough to tip me over the edge, and I can feel a fresh gout of blood run down my cheeks and onto my neck as I try to voice a groan. It rattles in my chest as the orgasm rattles my bones, and oh, it's as amazing as it always is. Like being struck by lightning that strikes sparks off every needle in me. 

He rides it out with me, still sitting on my thighs and pinning me to the floor, but I can feel the tremble in his legs. His hand never stops moving and neither do mine, and I dig my nails into the rushes in vain attempt to get traction. Only when my head thuds back against the floor and my palms lie flat does he get up.

 

My hands shake when I sit up, and my head swims with the sensation of all my nerves being afire. Every needlepoint, exit and entry, feels like a bruise. Like a stab. Like deep kisses of pain. He raises his hand to my face, intending to pull the needles out, but I stop him. "Leave them," I gesture, waving his hand aside. 

He disobeys, and sets a wide palm against my forehead to keep me from moving, his fingers digging into my scalp. He plucks a single needle, made of bone and the colour of a claw, from my mouth. Regarding it for a moment, both because the bright red sheen on it captures his attention and because he wants to capture mine, he puts it in his mouth to suck the blood off. Then he pushes the needle through the trim of his shirt collar.

"You're a strange sort, Loki," he says, licking his lips as though still looking for the taste of blood. "There is no issue that you cannot convolute. Even as I repay my debt to you, you incur more for yourself."

His smile is the slyest I've ever seen on him.

 

Last time I saw him, the needle was still threaded through his collar. Bone, the colour of a claw. I could feel my mouth twitch, feel my lips prickle.

_How'd you get all those scars, Low Key?_

**Author's Note:**

> If anyone is interested, I see bookverse Low Key as a cross between Jackie Earle Haley and Sean Harris. Thor is a little vaguer, but he doesn't look like the Marvel variant. However, you're free to go with whatever headcanon you have. ♥


End file.
